10 Galleons and a Dead Rat
by Aycelcus
Summary: Summary: Severus Snape sees Harry all trussed up as a street walker and has to put his two cents in. This is a satirical one-shot that has SLASH themes and I blame it all on reading too much Douglas Adams.


**10 Galleons and a Dead Rat**

By Aycelcus

Rating: PG-13

For the 5th TTS Contest

Love Eater category.

Challenge # 6: _Harry is working as an Auror and is undercover as a prostitute in Knockturn Alley. Having just decided to call off surveillance for the night, Harry begins walking away. Severus sees through Harry's glamour and is shocked. He confronts the Boy-Who-Lived about his choice of profession. _

Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived and all that rubbish, shifted his weight tiredly from aching foot to aching foot, and told himself not to rub at his eyes. He hated wearing glamours, they always made his eyes itch; and since the elaborate makeup he wore was (for practicality's sake) not part of the glamour and had been painstakingly applied by Ginny, he rather thought it would be a bad idea to smear all her hard work… again.

Knockturn Alley was in full swing on this muggy Saturday evening, with late shoppers and later thieves all chasing each other along the dark, cramped alley in a bizarre, sometimes fatal, dance. Harry's eyes watched everything with apparent disinterest, swinging his hips lazily towards passersby in a lewd, inviting manner. He mimicked the cocky swagger and the shuttered eyes of the other prostitutes working the street tonight, letting the behaviors mask his identity along with the glamour. To those who bothered to look at him as he postured in the fog he wasn't Harry Potter, Auror, but Danny, one of many nameless skin-sellers along the seedy strip. The glamour made his black hair a nondescript brown, his eyes muddy and forgettable, and Ginny's remarkable skills with make-up (a result of becoming friends with a Muggle theater student during her college years) covered up his scar enough to be unnoticeable. Add in some tight clothes from Draco's discards, and he managed an uncanny semblance of a bored prostitute waiting for wizards to proposition.

Not that this was something he wanted to be doing. However, his mark had a known predilection towards young, pretty boys, and was often seen prowling Knockturn Alley for skin-sellers. It was determined that the best way to catch this particular wizard was to masquerade as one of the whores he liked so much. Now Harry supposed that going undercover as a prostitute was not the worst job an Auror could have, but he was beginning to believe that it was closer to the bottom than say… rounding up Flobberworms for Hagrid. In any case, Harry was tired, achy, and ready to give his report and go home where he could remove his sharply-heeled boots and wash off the make-up, and try to forget that his ass has been fondled by no less than half of Knockturn Alley at one point or another throughout the course of the evening. Harry was beginning to think that this job was more degrading than even the time he had to strip naked to convince a roving band of Veela that he wasn't hiding his wand anywhere inappropriate, and could they maybe release him, please?

He was also beginning to think that his mark, a particularly nasty wizard going by the name Felter Flanniganshire, was not coming to Knockturn Alley this evening (in any sense of the word), and perhaps he should call it a night before he blew his cover by repeatedly slamming his sharply-heeled boot into the skull of the next passerby to pass their slimy hand across his rear.

In retrospect, he should probably thank that next passerby for making his decision a moot point by nearly breaking his cover for him.

Just as Harry finally turned to find an apparition point, he found himself confronted by a familiar (and wholly unwelcome) figure. Clad in his habitual black robes, and carrying a small set of packages in one hand, Professor Severus Snape was standing in the middle of the alley staring at him in badly-concealed shock.

It should be noted here that the glamour that Harry was wearing was in fact a very good glamour, well-constructed and nigh-impenetrable. It should also be noted that the word "nigh" in this instance indicates that the glamour was, in fact, _not_ impenetrable. Finally, it should be expected that certain people would automatically be able to see through the glamour with no trouble at all. These people included anyone who was aware that he was Harry Potter and that he was wearing a glamour (his Auror superiors, and Ginny would be fine examples of this), and anyone who has had continued close magical contact with Harry, such as one Severus Snape, who not only had taught Harry at Hogwarts for seven years, but had actually been inside his mind, thanks to quite a few ill-fated Occlumency lessons that achieved almost nothing of their original purpose. So while everyone else in the alley saw a non-descript brownish-haired young prostitute in garish make-up and sharply-heeled boots, Severus saw _Harry Potter_ in the previously-stated garish make-up and sharply-heeled boots. While the first would not shock the Professor, as he has seen many non-descript brownish-haired prostitutes prowl Knockturn Alley in his life, this would be the first time he has ever seen the Boy Who Lived in such a rigging. Having heard little of him since the war, we can rightly assume that Severus would, with no evidence to suggest otherwise, become enraged that the Wizarding World's favourite little hero was selling himself as a catamite right outside his preferred place to shop for potion ingredients.

There passed very little time from when Harry nearly ran into his former professor to the point that Severus found himself with a pair of lips keeping his mouth too busy to speak and a pair of hands leading him up a flight of stairs to a room of the type that disreputable wizards and witches can rent by the hour for what almost could be considered very reasonable prices. What transpired in that small space of time was a swift conversation that for no apparent reason lead to the untimely death of a sewer rat (who had done nothing to either wizard, and who spent its afterlife confused and slightly hurt that such a thing could befall a humble sewer rat), and some suspicious rashes appearing on some of the other patrons of Knockturn Alley that turned out to be a very rare disease that causes the afflicted to speak entirely in haiku.

The conversation (although it is rather one-sided, and probably could not be considered a true conversation, but we will ignore that for the sake of brevity) went as follows:

Severus Snape, not-quite recovered from his shock, finally manages to get words past his uncooperative teeth. "Mr. Potter, what in Merlin's name are you doing in that get-up? As idiotic as you are, I find it hard to believe that Pet of the Wizarding World would stoop so low as to sell himself on the street like a common wh―" At this point the conversation ends with Harry's lips, an action that is far more shocking to Professor Snape than the idea that the Boy Who Lived could be a whore in the first place.

Although at the time Harry was just as shocked at his own behavior as his former Professor was, later he would be quite self-congratulatory in thinking so swiftly, and in such a manner that allowed him to molest his former teacher in public without any serious repercussions. (He still knows nothing about the rat.) However, Harry tended to follow his instincts wherever they would lead, and in this particular case his instincts had been helping him cock his hips invitingly all afternoon, so we shouldn't be surprised that they thought that kissing Severus Snape was a good idea. Also, his instincts believed it would be simply marvelous if Harry could grab a bit of Snape's ass as he led the Professor to the almost reasonably-priced room, all the while whispering sweet, hot nothings into his ear. After all, it was imperative that Harry keep in-character.

Harry kept quite smashingly in-character right up to the point when he seductively locked the door, seductively cast a Silencio Charm, and then seductively rounded on Severus with a scowl that deeply upset his instincts (which where having such a good time before.)

"Are you mad? You could have blown my cover out there! Weeks of work, right down the pisser!"

Severus Snape blinked and scowled in a way that didn't deeply upset anything, as scowling was a common activity for him. "Cover?"

"Yes, _cover_. I certainly wouldn't be out there in all this otherwise." Harry growled out as his instincts considered conducting a coup.

"Cover." Severus repeated.

"Can't you say anything else? You seemed so articulate in school," Harry dead-panned as an eye began to twitch. He was trying to ignore his instincts, which having successfully started their coup were now in the process of trying to get him to kiss Severus again, as they still found it smashing fun.

It was true that Severus Snape was usually far more articulate. He was also usually far more sardonic as well, his tongue dripping acid with little notice. However, just a few moments ago his tongue had been distracted by an unscheduled activity, and was still trying to recover. "Cover," it said again, completely without his permission.

"… If I had known that kissing you had that effect, I might have tried it years ago." Rolling his eyes, Harry stepped forward into Severus' personal space, oddly enjoying the way his eyes widened. "Cover, as in "undercover", as in I am pretending to be a prostitute to flush out a naughty wizard. Although I might have inadvertently managed that… You are a naughty wizard, aren't you?"

It should be noted that Harry's instincts, having successfully staged their coup, were tilting Harry's hips invitingly again, and making his lips smile slyly as Severus Snape sputtered. Ticker-tape parades were running through his bloodstream and the part of his brain that argued that trying to seduce his former Potion's Master was a bad idea had been trussed up and thrown into a corner of his subconscious, wherein it is believed he still sits today. This is a very good thing, for the Prude really has no use other than to be trussed up and thrown into the subconscious, for it causes far too many problems in people who could be quite well-adjusted without it.

Harry's instincts leaned him close to Severus' ear to whisper softly, "you want to be naughty?"

Severus' eyes widened again and he flushed.

He reached up a hand to touch Harry along the jaw, confusion and desire in his face.

He leaned in to kiss him.

And found a hand in his way.

"That would be 10 galleons, I'd think," said Harry cheekily as he bounded away.

"What?" Severus sputtered.

"That's for breaking my cover. You want to continue this, then meet me at the Three Broomsticks on Saturday. I have a report to give." Then Harry smiled mischievously, and waggled his fingers. "Toodles!" And he apparated away, leaving Severus Snape completely discombobulated in the middle of an almost reasonably-priced room off Knockturn Alley.

The inherent lesson in this odd little interlude is not that Harry and Severus did meet at the Three Broomsticks, and did go on to have a stormy, if satisfactory, affair that utterly confused the rest of the Wizarding World, nor is it not to go undercover as a prostitute on Knockturn Alley when your glamour is only nigh-impenetrable, as opposed to wholly impenetrable. The lesson that we should rather take away with us is that having one-sided conversations with a boy in sharply-heeled boots is ultimately, if improbably, responsible for the rude death of a humble sewer rat and a strange rash that causes the afflicted to speak entirely in haiku. And also, that even when your instincts stage a wildly successful coup, sometimes your mischievousness happens to have a machine-gun and an odd affection for the word "toodles."

_A.N.: I entirely blame this thing on reading Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy all day. Other than that I have no explanation._


End file.
